Willow and Hearth

“Be mindful of how many lights you leave on. Your roommate has to pick up half the bill.” That is how Ella (@ellammarx) recounts the text her landlord sent after he had been inside her apartment while she was at work. She says she lives there alone.

In a TikTok posted September 22, filmed at her kitchen counter under the on screen line “Pls lmk if I’m crazy,” she lays out the arrangement. She rents a two bedroom apartment and has no roommate, “which means I pick up the whole electricity bill and Wi Fi bill every month.”

The problem with notice, she says, started before that day. Her landlord has given apartment tours to possible roommates, “his only notification being a knock” at her door, with no text beforehand. She says she let it slide a couple of times.

On the day she filmed, she says, he texted at 9 or 10 in the morning, after she had already left for work, to say the place was being sprayed for roaches that day and to ask whether she wanted them to come in the morning or the afternoon. “You could have told me last night, and then I could have cleaned the apartment or something,” she says. “I’m living like I live here.”

By her account, the landlord came in for the spraying and was also taking out her AC unit, which she thinks is why he was in her bedroom. Then photos began arriving on her phone: a picture, she says, of every lamp that was on. “I have tiny lamps, so, yes, I do leave them on when I’m lazy,” she says. “It’s my bill.”

More pictures followed of what she had left out in the kitchen. She turns the camera toward the white stove as she lists them: a pan, dishes in the sink, and a cutting board with one knife on it.

After the photos came what she calls a long text. As she retells it, the message asked her to watch the lights because a roommate pays half the bill, and to try not to leave her things everywhere, since it “can make a roommate uncomfortable” if she is “invading the space.” Her response to the camera: “What roommate are you talking about?”

She says she would understand the concern if a tour were coming through, and that the fix is easy: “Let me know. And then I’ll clean the apartment.” She calls herself “not a messy, messy person” and says anyone who leaves for work will sometimes “leave the egg pan on the stove.”

The rug is her other grievance. She says she had swapped out a gray rug she dislikes “because the floors are beautiful” and put a black rug in the middle of the room, and the landlord put the gray one back. “I don’t care that it’s the common area,” she says. “I’m the only one living here.”

She ends with three objections. “I don’t like that he took pictures of my room. I don’t like that he had anything to say about the electricity, considering I’m paying for it.” The third is that he commented on her kitchen “considering he gave me no prior notice.” The video is her side only; the landlord’s texts and photos are described, not shown.

What to Check and Send After a Landlord Walks Through a Shared Layout Apartment

Her story has a detail that changes what a tenant in her spot should read first: she is the only person in a two bedroom, yet the landlord shows it to possible roommates and she herself calls the room with the rug “the common area.” Open the lease and find out whether you rented the whole apartment or one bedroom plus shared space. The answer frames every request below, because it tells you whether the second bedroom and the kitchen are yours alone or shared space.

Then find the entry clause. Write down how much notice it promises, in what form (text, email, a note on the door) and for which reasons. Pest treatment, showings to prospective roommates and removing an AC unit are three different reasons, and all three come up in her video. If the lease is silent, look up the notice of entry rule for your state or city before you reply.

Save the proof the same day. Screenshot the morning text with its time stamp, every photo he sent and the long message. Add a note with the dates of the earlier tours that came with only a knock, as best you remember them.

Reply in writing, in one calm message, with specific requests. Ask for a text the evening before any entry or showing. Ask what work was done in the bedroom and whether the AC unit is coming back. Ask whether a roommate has signed and, if so, the move in date. Ask that photos not be taken inside your bedroom.

Settle the bills before anyone moves in. She pays all of the electricity and Wi Fi now, and the text she describes assumes a split. Ask in writing how each bill will be divided, from what date, and whose name the accounts stay in.

For the rug, ask whether the furnishings in the shared room are part of the lease and whether you may change them while you are the only occupant. If you do swap one out, keep the landlord’s rug rolled up inside the apartment so it goes back undamaged.